My Brachial Plexus Injury Story

I've past the 4 years milestone. This is a significant time because it is supposed to be reaching the apex of the recovery. For a normal day to day, you usually don't need to raise your arm more than 90 degrees. All my needs are pretty much covered at that angle. Higher than that, you need occasional motion that tends to be important at the moment. For example, getting something heavy off a shelf. I can manage most of the times I run into the scenario. What I noticed a few months ago is that I wasn't able to throw a basketball. A random ball made its way to me on the street, I grabbed it and when I threw it back, both my face and the owner's looked hilariously disappointed. Ever since I started practicing the motion, with a smaller rubber wall, against an imaginary ring on my room's wall. I thought it would be hard to see any improvement since the 4th anniversary mark. Surprisingly, after a month of a few minutes of practice per day, my throw is getting better. And

These past few months life have been really busy, barely managed to stick to my recovery exercises. Still, recovery goes on, and I can see some improvements on stability and strength \o/ Sensation on the thumb seems to be slightly improving too. Other sensory areas are more or less the same I think. This month makes 4 years since the accident. Always an emotional month !

I'm changing a bit the exercises. I usually work the lateral or front raise, now I'm trying to engage more the rear deltoid, supra and infra. The doctor recommended me to try badminton to improve arm stability, I think I would be really bad at it at this moment so I'm trying some exercises with a soft ball against the wall. I've quickly noticed an improvement. I think I'll try badminton or some racket game soon. As for now, I managed to do my first real push-up \o/ it was only one, but that's a start :) I'm actually OK doing planks, I guess I have not been exercising the triceps as I should, so I still have some pending work there.

  It has been 3 years after the surgery. I remember vividly the sensation on the way to the surgery room. The frustration of giving up hope for a full natural healing, and giving in to a calculated risk with estimated recovery level rates. My brachioradialis is still reminding me it was the right call. It is getting a bit stronger tho 💪. Everything related to the arm healing feels normal by now, and used to it by a long shot. Very grateful to Dr. Somsak and Dr. Kanchai for the fantastic work done on me. I continue my exercises as much as I can, and hopefully my self-discipline will help me to continue for at least a few more years.

Passed the 2 years mark, and very happy to see improvements. Strength is increasing, muscle mass too. From an outside viewer it appears my BPI arm is a healthy strong arm. Hypersensitivity still there. I recently spoke to an old friend whose partner got into a motorcycle accident and had a nerve injury in the leg. Several years later the hypersensitivity still there for that person, I guess this part takes a bit longer to heal. Life goes on as usual. I'm moving apartment next week and had to do a lot of physical movement, including a very tiring round of washing curtains. I was surprise to have muscle soreness on the BPI arm the day after, I guess that's a very good sign. I continue with my exercise routine, and I noticed I developed a bit of bad posture when raising the arm. I suspect this caused me to have a mild pull on the sciatica nerve last December, from what I'm still recovering too. I expect this will improve as it gets easier to raise the arm. The feeling I have w

  Soon it will be two years since the surgery. Arm movement continues to improve, and feels like soon enough it would allow raise on a more natural motion. Elbow flexion is improving as well, still not forcing it too hard tho. Doing planks is possible again, and sometimes I can throw in a half-way push-up. I'm still doing daily exercises, and functional daily usage of the arm is now more comfortable. Muscle mass keep increasing for all the muscles. The biceps it is still sensible when being pressed. Hypersensitivity seems to be fading, but at a very slow rate. The elbow flexion still looks a bit crooked. Not sure if I can get it straight on my own, but anyway it is a small issue. Incredibly happy with the progress :)

Recovery exercises and rehab are very important for this injury. You may quickly realize that it is not feasible to visit a physio every day - it would be challenging, both organizational and cost wise. During my days in occupational therapy, at the beginning of the injury, I noticed the environment and what could be expected of a continuous visit to that hospital (government sponsored). I tried a physio with alleged previous experience with BPI, and the prospect was not any better. On top of the mandatory nerve transfer exercises, I came up with a few series of exercises I've been doing since I was able to slightly move the arm. I don't know if these are the most optimal I could do, but I've heard that people doing physiotherapy on their own still can achieve decent recovery, so I thought I couldn't get too wrong on them. Before being able to trigger functional movement, I believe the most important is to send stimuli to the nerve. This is mainly achieved via the nerve